


Let Her In

by OneDreamADay



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-28 04:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneDreamADay/pseuds/OneDreamADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In darkness, there can be light. In misery, there can be beauty. In death, there can be life... "Just so you know, we can't be friends." [Dead Fic as of 2012]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. footprints in the fresh snow

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by 'Let the Right One In'

He notices her at night, while sitting in his room and snacking on lunch meat because it's the only thing to eat for the night. For the moment, Luffy would rather be in the elsewhere than in the apartment, stuck with a distant father, who prefers drinking over trying to get food so that they can eat.

The girl, who looks to be around his age, moves in late at night with an older man, a guy with blond hair (Luffy assumes it's her father) accompanying her and carrying their things in a black trunk.

He realizes she has no shoes on. Even though it's the middle of winter.

When Luffy leaves for school in the morning, there's cardboard covering the window in the new neighbor's apartment.

xXxXxX

Luffy's hoping he can move quick enough to avoid Damien Crocodile and his two goons after school. And for a while, it seems like it'll work, until a hand grabs him from behind, and pulls it into a headlock.

The raven-haired boy swears at the older boy, trying to get away. For all his trouble, Luffy gets a punch to the face.

If his father sees the black eye now sporting his son's face, he doesn't say anything about it.

xXxXxX

Outside that night, he finally meets her.

He's angrily punching the tree, trying to get some form of frustration out when he hears soft footsteps behind him. He turns to see the girl standing on the jungle gym, wearing a hoodie, with shorts on and bare feet yet again.

"What are you doing?" She asks.

"Nothing," He replies. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"You just moved in, right?" Luffy asks, trying to start a conversation. "I stay next door to you." He points to the window.

She walks closer to him and he can see red hair poking through from under the hood. She stares at him for a moment, before backing away.

"Just so you know," She says as she walks away. "We can't be friends."

"Who said I wanted to be your friend?" He calls after her, annoyed at the immediate rejection of a could-be friendship with someone. "Idiot."

When he returns to his room later that night, he can hear arguing through the paper-thin walls in his room, coming from the apartment next door; the apartment where the red-haired girl lives. One's an angry, loud female voice, the other, a male's voice, is surprisingly, small and soft. He can't hear exactly what they're arguing about; he later hears feet stomping and the apartment door opening and closing with an loud bang.

xXxXxX

The next day at school, he can see other students gathering by the principal's doorway, where a couple of police officers are talking to the teachers. He recognizes one of the officers as Officer Smoker, someone who's dealt with Luffy's father multiple times when the man drinks too much at the pub.

Later that day, at an assembly they tell the students about one of the recent graduate of the school has been found murdered and now they have to be careful of strangers on the way home.

The officer assures they that they will do every thing to protect them and Luffy thinks they should add protection from bullies on this list of Things We Will Save You From.

xXxXxX

Luffy's in the courtyard, trying to solve a Rubik's Cube when he hears the crunch of snow behind him and the girl joins him on the jungle gym. He can hear her stomach growling loudly.

"It's you again, huh?" She says. "You know, I really want to be left alone."

"So? Me too."

"So leave then."

"You leave! I've lived here longer than you." He snaps, not understanding her logic in being here with him if she wants to be alone and he goes back to working on the Rubik's Cube.

"What's that?" The girl asks him.

"This?" He motions to the toy and she nods. "It's called a Rubik's Cube."

"Is it a puzzle?"

"Yeah. You want to try it?" He asks, holding it out to her. "Just give it back to me tomorrow."

"What if I'm not here tomorrow?"

"Then give it back the next day. Just don't keep it that long. It's mine."

Nami looks as if she wants to say something, but she stops, shakes her head. Luffy gives her the toy and she looks it over. "What do you have to do?"

Luffy explains what to do, and watches as she slides around the pieces. Her stomach growls loudly again. If she's embarrassed by it, she doesn't show it.

"You smell kinda funny." He tells her. Which is true, though he can't actually describe the smell, because it's three different scents mixed into one. Something like a metallic smell, body odor and something else he can't quite describe. He looks down at her bare feet. "Aren't you cold?"

"Not really. I don't get cold." The answer is short, clearly saying not to ask anymore questions.

Luffy leaves her to the puzzle and goes home.

While getting ready for bed, he hears the arguing again. Luffy places his ear against the wall to try to hear better, when suddenly there a loud bang in the other side that jolts that wall hard enough to make his ear drums ring.

He hears they're door open and shut. Rushing to the window, he sees the man he thinks is the girl's father, the guy with blond hair, leaving.

xXxXxX

In the morning, on his way going to school, he finds the Rubik's Cube on the top of the jungle gym, completely solved.

Luffy is amazed.

She's there when he enters the courtyard that evening. Her clothes are different too. She has on an warmer clothes and boots are on her feet. She's giving a half-smile when she sees him.

"How'd you do it?" Luffy asks her, holding up the cube. She smiles and shrugs.

"It wasn't that hard." He sits on the bar below her, still amazing that she could solve it so quickly in a day and he's been trying to figure it out for a few weeks now, after his brother gave it to him.

"Do I smell better now?"

"I guess," He looks up at her. "What's your name?"

"Nami. What's yours?" He gives her his name and asks how old she is.

"Twelve." She answers. "More or less. What about you?"

"Twelve years, eight months and nine days." She raises an eyebrow at him and he laughs.

"What do you mean 'more or less?'" He asks. "Don't you know how old you are? When's your birthday?"

Nami shrugs. "I don't know."

"You don't know? Don't you celebrate your birthday?" He presses on when she doesn't answer. "Don't you get any birthday presents?"

"No." It's spoken very matter-of-fact, as if she used to it.

Luffy's quiet for a while, thinking. "Well you have this if you want," He holds out the Rubik's Cube.

Nami shakes her head. "That's okay. It's yours, after all."

His attention goes back to the Rubik's Cube. "I still don't get how you figured it out."

"I can show you," She offers. "If you want me to."

He accepts the offer. They share a smile.

xXxXxX

He's looking through a book, working on something to show to Nami, when Crocodile decides to corner him later that day. When he demands to see what Luffy's been working on, the black-haired boy refuses to show to him.

He gets a cut across the cheek for refusing. But for once, Luffy feels like it's worth it.

His father doesn't bring up the bandage across his cheek at dinner. It's silent and awkward as always, and for the first time, when his dad falls down the crouch in a drunken stupor, Luffy doesn't care.

xXxXxX

"Look what I made. " He shows her the Morse code he copied out of the book in class, while Nami looks curiously at the book, Romeo and Juliet, that fell out of his backpack. He tells her it's stupid and boring, something he has to read for class and he doesn't complain when she wants to borrow it. "We can talk to each other through the wall. Isn't that neat?"

Nami looks worried for a second. "Can you hear me through the wall?"

"Sometimes." He admits.

"Did you hear anything the other night?"

"Only a little. You don't get along with you dad? Is that why's you're always arguing?"

"He's not my dad. He just takes care of me."

Nami looks uncomfortable about talking about it, but he can see a lot of sadness that shows in her eyes when he asks he about her mom. "Where is she-?"

"My mom's dead." She answers curtly.

Luffy looks at the ground. "Sorry." He says. "My mom's gone too. She left when I was a kid, with my brother when I seven. Ace is really my half-brother-"

"What happened to your face?" She cuts off his rambling, touching the bandage softly. Luffy moves away from her touch.

"Nothing. Just some kids at school. Where do you go to school at anyways? I never see you-"

"Luffy, listen."

He looks at her, listening.

"You have to hit back. You have to hit back hard."

"I can't," He says and it's a bit embarrassing to admit this to a girl. "There's three of them."

"Then you hit back even harder. Hit them back as hard as you can. Then they'll stop."

He's thought about this multiple times; it's what with happen afterward that scares Luffy. Because while the older boy seems content with just giving the occasional punch to the gut and shoving him into lockers, Luffy's afraid that if he actually fights back, the bullying will just get worse.

He explains the last part to her. "Then scare them with a weapon, like a knife."

"What if that doesn't work?" Because Crocodile seems like the type of person that won't be afraid of anything, much less a knife being welded by a boy much smaller than him.

"Then I'll help you." She says simply.

"But.." He doesn't want to sound mean when he says it because he doesn't want her fighting for him. "You're a girl."

She places her hand on top of his, smiling softly and looking very patiently at him. "I'm a lot stronger than you think I am."

When he returns to his room, he has to wait only moments before Nami's knocking on the other side.

'Hi' She taps out.

'Hi' He taps back.

xXxXxX

After school, Luffy asks his gym teacher if he can take the strength training classes after school. It's really suppose to be for the older students, but the teacher gives in after seeing the determined look in his eyes.

"Don't come crying to me if you can't handle it. But you can start tomorrow at four, alright?"

"Okay."

There's no food when he gets home, and his father is passed out drunk on the couch. Luffy pulls out a twenty dollar bill from his father's wallet, and tells Nami to follow him.

He takes her to the local arcade, telling Nami she's cool because she can beat most of the puzzle games there. "How're you so good at them?"

She shrugs. "I just am."

He stops by the deli to get something to eat, picking out a package of lunch meat to eat. "You want something?" He offers. "It's really good. Meat's my favorite."

She declines, but Luffy's stubborn, wanting to buy her something because she can't not eat. And he doesn't feel right eating in front of her face. "You want fruit then? They got tangerines and stuff if you want that."

She shakes her head no again, so Luffy lets it go. Halfway home, Nami hesitantly asks for a piece of the ham his eating, to which he happily agrees to. But Luffy can tell something wrong; although she tells him it's good and she likes it, her face says otherwise.

She takes a few steps from him before she's coughing up the meat. "Sorry," She mumbles out.

Before Luffy can stop himself, he's pulled her into a hug.

They stay like that for a few moments. "Luffy, do you like me?"

"Yeah," He admits softly. "A little, maybe a lot."

"Would-would you still like me? Even if I wasn't a girl?"

Luffy doesn't understand what she means by this question. "Yeah, I guess. Why?" He pulls from the hug and looks at her, confused. "Why?"

"No reason."

But even as she says this, she takes his hand and holds it.

xXxXxX

He dials the number, pacing back and forth in anticipation. The phone's picked up on the third ring and a gruff voice answers it. "Hello?"

"Hey Marco. Is my brother there?"

"Ace? Yeah he's here-hold on lemme wake him up. Just had one of his narcoleptic fits."

There talking in the background as the man places the phone on a surface. Then more noise as the phone's picked up again.

"How is it that you always call right when I fall asleep?" The teen joked, letting out a huge yawn. "So what up? How's the old man?"

"He's the same. Nothing's changed." Ace made a noise that might have been somewhere between a snort and a sigh. "Hey Ace, can you I ask you something, if you promise not to laugh?"

"What is it?"

"Promise you won't laugh."

"Fine, I won't laugh. Now what is it?"

"How do you know if you like someone? Like really, really, really like them?"

Despite the older boy's promise, Ace burst out in laughter and happily announces to Marco that his little brother has his first crush.


	2. be gone and live or stay and die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Then I'll stay as long as I can, for you."

For almost a week, Luffy doesn't see Nami. And although Nami has told him he's not come over her apartment unit, he does so anyway. It's his worry about how she's doing that make him total disregard her request (though at the time, it sounds more like an order.)

When he knocks on the door, the blonde man he sees almost every night leaving answers the door, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. "What do you want?" he asked roughly.

"… I want to see Nami. Is she okay? I haven't seen her in a while so was wondering if she was sick." He mumbles out. The way the man is looking at him unnerves Luffy a bit.

He sees Nami appear from behind, wearing only a long t-shirt that stops at her knees. "It's alright. I can take care of it." She waits until the man disappears from sight, then turns to Luffy.

"What are you doing here?" She asks, she's tired-looking, paler than usual. "I told you not to come over."

"Yeah, I know..I just was worried about you."

Nami looked surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. Just making sure, you're-you know- alive." Nami laughs, though to Luffy's ears, it sounds forced and fake.

He doesn't mention this out loud though, and instead says something else that's on his mind. "You smell funny again."

She hits him upside his head, though there's not much force behind it. "Quit saying that."

"But it's true."

"It's rude." She sighs. "But I'm fine."

"Sick?"

"Sure, I guess. I'll be fine. Don't come over again." She tells him sharply, closing the door.

Luffy stands there for a moment, then taps in Morse on the door 'sorry.'

'I know' is the reply after a short moment.

xXxXxX

A month since Nami moved in and it changes into the new year. As usual, it's a quiet affair for the Monkey family. Luffy's father celebrates by telling the boy 'Happy New Year', and drinking more than usual. A quick phone call from Ace and their mother. He gives Nami a New Year present, a Professor's Cube, remembering her interest for the Rubik's Cube. She gives him an appreciative hug, but then looks apologetic at him. "I didn't even get you anything."

Luffy shrugs his shoulders. "Don't worry about it. Beside, this would be your first present, right?"

Nami smiles and nods.

xXxXxX

The two of them have set up a ritual of sorts. They usually spend time together after Luffy gets out of school, and will either hang in the courtyard or as of recently, he'll take her to the movies or show her around town. Luffy thinks she must not go to movies that much, because she's enthralled with the pictures, and that's where they usually spend their time. He knows he can't offer much to her, but the time they do spent together is fun, and he's glad for it because it fills the void that he has at home.

"I might be moving soon," Nami tells him on the way home one evening. "It's getting too dangerous here. It'll probably be around spring, if not sooner."

Luffy thinks for a moment. "Is it because of the murders?" There's been over eight people found in the local area, mostly teenagers. Luffy has noticed more police activity in the area, though it doesn't seem to be working.

The redhead nods. "A little."

"If you're worried, I can protect you."

Nami laughs. "Worry about protecting yourself first."

"I'm getting stronger," he insists. "I'm still doing the strength classes after and I'm getting better." He adds afterwards: "I don't want you to go."

Although he considers Nami a good friend, he realizes that she's distant to a degree. He still knows nothing of her family life, other than the fact that the blonde man is her caretaker of sorts. And she seems reluctant to talk about that. Luffy understand that he shouldn't pry, that she doesn't want him to pry, but he can't help but be curious. Nevertheless, he keeps his curiosities to himself and when she wants to tell him, he can wait.

"Then I'll stay as long as I can, for you."

xXxXxX

"You're weird, Nami." He tells her one day while they're on the swings in the playground. Which is true, she uses big words that most of the time he can't understand. She tells him to get a dictionary to look up the meaning of the words, and Luffy thinks it's funny; he has to use a dictionary to understand Nami. That doesn't makes sense.

"You're amusing."

"Huh?"

"Fun, Luffy. It means 'fun."

"Oh." He looked at her now bare feet; she had kicked off her boots and socks, claiming her feet were hot. "How come you don't get cold?"

"I just don't. Guess I forgot how."

"Nami?"

"Hmm?"

"You're weird." He repeats.

She responds by pushing off his swing. "Do you always say the first thing that comes to your mind?"

Luffy grinned sheepishly. "Sometimes."

xXxXxX

Luffy wakes up two nights later to Nami calling his name. He hasn't seen her for the past two days, and he's happy to see her. He's too tired to figure how or why she's on his windowsill, but tells her she can come in (it's something she kept insisting he say).

"Don't look at me." She tells him. Luffy agrees to it, not sure why she wants to do it. But it seems to satisfy Nami. She slips in under the covers next to him, and he forget his promise not to to look at her but her hand smashes into his face and pushes his head back on his pillow as he's about to turn around.

"I told you not to look." Nami growls at him. He pouts at her, not really sure if she can see it, since it's so pitch black in his room. He wonder how she manages to see him and find the bed and not trips over clothes that litter the floor, but it chalks it up to Nami's weirdness.

"How'd you get up here?" He asks her.

"I flew."

"Yeah, right."

Luffy's about to drift back to sleep when he notices something.

"How come you're not wearing anything? And why are you so cold?"

"I just can't get warm. And is that gross? Me not having any clothes on?"

He's not sure. "No. Where have you been?"

"Getting some food." She answers, leaning her head on his shoulder; her lips tickling his shoulder.

"Why didn't your dad-" He pauses when Nami stiffs against him, then continues. "Oh, forgot - he's not your dad- but how come he didn't get you anything?"

"He's gone."

"Gone where?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, no- but- did he-"

"It. Doesn't. Matter."

Luffy gives in, noting the hard edge in the girl's voice and realizes that asking more questions won't do anything but make her mad. Which usually means he'll get hit. This is a new habit she's started; her hitting him.

He shifts, giving Nami more of the blankets and hoping they'll warm her up faster. "Nami, you wanna be my girlfriend?" It's something he's been wanting to ask for a while. While the concept of what dating is escapes him, Luffy knows you only ask it to someone you really like. And he really likes Nami.

"What does that mean?"

"That you would be together with me."

"What do you mean 'together'?" She asks, her voice has a uneasy tone to it. There's a long pause before Nami finally answers. "Luffy, I-I'm not a girl."

"You're not a girl?" That's a dumb excuse because she looks plenty like a girl. Otherwise there would no point in asking her to be his girlfriend. "Then what are you?"

She moves, pulling more covers over her. "I'm nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing?'" When she doesn't answer, Luffy huffs. "You say the weirdest things. If you don't wanna be girlfriend, you could come up with a better excuse than that."

"Can't we keep things the way there are?"

"Sure, if you want to to." He tries to hide the hurt in his voice, but it fails.

She's silent for a minute or two. "Well... do we have to do anything special?"

"No. I don't think so."

"So..everything stays the same?"

"Yeah. Why? You want stuff to change?" He hopes she says no; hopes that saying 'no' will mean she won't disappear like his mom did because things needed to 'change.' He likes hanging out with Nami and telling her secrets he's never told anyone else, not even Ace. And if she's a bit weird, that's fine too because-

"No." Nami says, cutting him from his thoughts. "I'll be your girlfriend, if everything's just like normal."

"Nothing will change." He assures her.

"Promise?"

He feels for her hand and after fumbling for a moment, he manages to wrap his pinky around her's. "Yeah, promise."

Nami hums a song, repeating it out loud when Luffy asks her what it is. "It's something to say when you make a pinky promise. If you break your promise, you have to swallow a thousand needles." She explains.

Luffy laughs. It's loud, and he's not exactly sure why he's laughing. Nami probably doesn't either, but joins in, moving a bit closer to him. "Guess I have to make sure not to break that promise then, huh?"

Nami takes his hand and places it on her face; laces her fingers with his. Even though she's still cold, Luffy imagines it's a bit warmer.

"Nami?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you came over."

"Me too."

xXxXxX

The next morning, Nami's gone. Luffy looks out the window, wondering how she managed to get in and out of his room.

There's a note on top of his returned Romeo and Juliet book, written in Nami's neat handwriting.

'I must be gone and live or stay and die.' It reads. 'Read the book, idiot. It's not boring at all.' Below that, she had written 'Luffy+Nami' in a circle that kind of looks like a heart.

xXxXxX

There a school trip to the local lake for a day of ice skating. Luffy has no interest in it, instead he's reading the book and trying to understand why Nami likes it so much.

Crocodile has threaten to throw him into the lake, but for once Luffy pay him no attention. It's not until he's by himself that the boy realizes the older teen's going to try and make good on that threat.

They've cornered him by the section blocking off the hole in the ice, and Nami's words back to Luffy. He pulls the pole from the ground and holds it defensively.

"I'll hit you with it if you come any closer." He tells them.

"No you won't." The older boy looks at him. "You can make it easier on yourself right now. I'll even let you keep you clothes on when I throw you in."

He takes another step, then another. And Luffy swings.

There the dull thwack Luffy feels in his hands as the heavy end of the pole struck Crocodile across the face. The teen fell to the ground, howling. Luffy is dimly aware of it. His eyes are stuck on the scar he's left across Crocodile's face. Blood is seeping into the snow, and he can hear someone calling for the teacher.

Luffy looks in wonder. The teen whimpering in the snow is far from the bully he's use to. He's defenseless, Luffy dimly thinks. The teen can't hit him or tease him.

'I can whack him a few times and it'll all be over.' The though repeats itself over and over and it fills him with anger. Suddenly, the emotion is swelling in him and all Luffy wants to do is dish out to Crocodile all he's done to torment him during the school year.

A teacher soon arrives and starts tending to the teen on the ground, asking questions. The rush that was taking over Luffy ebbs away slowly, leaving behind something that might be guilt. But the feeling of power, the feeling of being in control stays.

Far off on the ice, more screaming, then shouts of a body in the ice.

xXxXxX

Officer Smoker comes by just as he gets done eating a sandwich for dinner. "My dad's here," Luffy blurts out automatically. "He hasn't left anywhere today." Although he's not too sure of that, since he was at school and the old man's been know to cause trouble at anytime.

Smoker waves a hand in dismissal. "Not here about that, kid. I need to talk to your father. He sober enough to talk?"

"You can try." He says as he lets the man in.

"Heard what you did to Crocodile's kid this afternoon. Split his face open, I heard."

Luffy nods, not sure where that conversation is leading to.

"Kid's been nothing but trouble, and his parents seem to think he doesn't noting wrong. Gad you stood up to him." There might be a smile of approval on the man's face, but it's gone too fast for Luffy to be sure.

Luffy hides his embarrassment, and led the officer to the living room where his father has passed out in the couch.

Surprising, his old man is sober enough to talk and Luffy's excused from the conversation, although Luffy has a feeling he knows what it's about. He overhears Smoker tell them the newest victim is a boy a kid from the middle school, and that everyone really needs to start being careful now.

"We might have found a suspect, but he might have a partner, so don't get too relaxed. That means you need to start keep tabs on your boy. And you try not to get to wasted."

Luffy thinks that's advice long overdue and a few years too late.

xXxXxX

In the evening as always, he meets up with Nami in the usual place, telling her the story at the lake (not telling her about the body found or about that overwhelming anger he felt) and she's smiling as he mentions defending himself.

"- and I hit him with it. He had to go to the hospital and I almost got suspended from school. But I did it. Just like you told me too." He grins. "It felt great too."

She bends down from where she's sitting on the upper bar and gives him a kiss on the cheek. He knows he grinning like an idiot right now, but he can't help it.

"Bravo" is all she says.

"Hey, you wanna go somewhere?" He asks. The cold's starting to get to him again, but he doesn't feel like going back home just yet.

"Where to?"

He takes her to the the basement, where it was once a boiler room. "It was just an empty room when me and Ace found it. So we used it as our clubhouse, and sometimes his friends Marco and Sabo would come over."

There's not much in it. Only a used couch, a beat-up TV that hardly works and a bookshelf with old comic books. But it offers a nice hideout to go to when he doesn't feel like going home.

"Hey Nami, wanna make a pact?"

It's later, in hindsight, Luffy thinks the situation could have been different if she had asked him "how?" Then he maybe would have told her what he was thinking before he did it. And the outcome would have been different also.

But instead, she simply said "yes" and led to a situation neither of them could avoid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Luffy, I can't do this.”

"Hey Nami, wanna make a pact?" 

The red head looks at him. “Sure.” Luffy tells her to close her eyes, which she does so hesitantly.

He takes out the pocketknife that on the shelf and swallowing hard, takes a deep breath and cuts into the palm of his hand. There's a stinging, smarting pain, but lasts for only a second or so. He thinks he might have cut too deep, because it's bleeding badly, drops of red dripping on the floor.

Nami's eyes snap open, looking at his hand. “What are you doing?” She asks in a near whisper.

“Making a pact, remember? Here, gimme your hand.” He reaches for it, but Nami pulls back, shaking her head.

“Luffy, I can't do this.”

“Sure you can. It's easy and it doesn't even hurt.” He holds out the handle of the knife to her, but she didn't take it. “You don't have to cut your hand; just prick a finger or something. Then we just make our blood pact.”

But Nami's backing away from him now, eyes focused on the blood dripping on the concrete floor. “You-you'll be infected-” She swallows hard, too many swirling emotions on her face that Luffy can't pick up on them all. “You need to leave now.”

Luffy starts to ask her what's wrong, because she's starting to quiver, no longer backing away from him, but her eyes focus from on the blood on the floor to his hand, then back to the floor. “Nami, what's-?”

His question is cut off, a low guttural growling sound coming from the girl before him.

It's an entirely inhuman sound.

Nami falls to all fours, hunched over the blood that has pooled on the floor. Luffy watches in shock as her tongue reaches out to lap at the blood on the concrete. Whatever words that were going to come out gets caught in his throat; he chokes on them. He makes a noise that just might be a whine, but he's not sure, doesn't care, only that it catches Nami's attention and her head snaps up to him.

When she looks up at him, instead of her normal brown eyes, pitch black eyes are looking at him. Her mouth pulls back into a snarl and Luffy can see sharp teeth.

The feeling of fear grows even more, and for the first time, he's scared for his life. 

His uncut hand tightens on the handle of the knife, and Nami's words a month ago comes back to him:

'Hit back.'

'Hit back hard.'

Expect this time, he's not defending himself against bullies; it's Nami and the though of injuring her makes him very uneasy and he can't get into the mindset of protecting himself, because it means stabbing her. Even if it is to possibly save his life.

He backs up until his back hits the wall. He can't get himself to get up and run; his legs refuse to move.

Nami's breathing harshly, black eyes going to the still slightly dripping wound. Suddenly, she jumps up and runs out the room, the door slamming against the wall hard enough that when Luffy looks later, he'll see a hole from where the door handles hit the wall.

It takes another ten minutes or so before Luffy feels like it's safe enough to leave. As he's leaving the apartment, he runs into Smoker. The man tells the boy to go straight home, in the tone of voice that leaves no room for argument. It's rare to hear it from the man, and Luffy wants to know what happened, but the man refuses to offer much detail, other than someone, a woman was fatally attacked and that means the police will be combing the area for clues and the residents are not allowed to leave for the moment.

A lump develops in Luffy's throat when he thinks of the idea that Nami just might be the culprit.

\- – – – - 

_The night's events replays itself over as a nightmare for Luffy. Except that this time, Nami's coming after him; fangs bared, blood dripping from them and she's coming closer, closer, closer-_

Luffy falls to the floor with a shout. The back of his head is smarting and he thinks he might have hit it on the corner of the nightstand when he fell from the bed. Although it's cold on the floor, he can't get himself to move, the nightmare replying over in his mind and before he's realizes it, he's curled up in a ball and crying.


End file.
